


Bath Beer

by lizleenimbus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bathtubs, First Kiss, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Hunt, lotsa cliches but what can I say, sorry I'm obsessed with baths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27182696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizleenimbus/pseuds/lizleenimbus
Summary: Cas finds Dean lingering in a cold bath
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 110
Kudos: 1086
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	Bath Beer

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another mini-ficlet with mild hurt/comfort involving bath tubs. I'm predictable, aren't I? Again, this is based on a comic I drew on a whim, nothing super properly-written. It's mostly to provide more context to the illustrations (you can find them @lizleeships on IG :)

He barely flinches when that familiar pop of ozone fills the damp air, underscored by a rustle of feathers. 

Frankly, he figured they’d have delegated a canary sooner. 

He’s about four beers in after all, though at this point they’re warmer than the bath. It’s oddly fitting to his state of mind; halfway to numb, even though the pain crippling his body is barely buoyed by the hard water. He knows he’s lucky to feel it at all, but can’t find it in him to be grateful right now.

He watches the wrinkled expanse of Cas’ graciously turned back instead, trying to figure out what response would be appropriate. 

He comes up blank but tries for casual.

“Today was such a shitshow that I’m too tired to even bitch you out for being in here.” 

There’s a subtle crinkle in the angel’s posture at being acknowledged, as though he expected otherwise. He shrugs, but doesn’t turn. Hungry for distraction, Dean relishes the small movement. He maps out the tightness of Cas’ jaw, the solid line of those shoulders steeled in concern even as he sits quietly against the grimy tile. Cas is feigning calm as much as Dean is; it’s a familiar dance by now. 

“Perhaps if you hadn’t left the motel bar so abruptly and subsequently locked yourself in the bathroom for hours, my concern would be less intrusive.” 

Cas’ concern is a familiar tune, too. 

On cue, Dean feels his heart give a guilty clench at constantly causing strife for his little family. It’s the first thing he’s felt in hours if he’s honest, but he convinces himself he doesn’t care. He can’t right now, or it might all just drown him. It had all come so dangerously close this time, even on terms they’re used to. Figures that after defeating most cosmic entities in the universe, a particularly motivated nest of ordinary, run-of-the-mill vamps would almost do him in. 

Either way, he ignores Cas’ petition for reason. He needs a fucking minute. 

Desperately, he evades. 

“Yeah well, the plan was to take a spin with that one blonde that kept giving me the eye but hell, I dunno. Guess I’m getting too old for this shit.” 

Cas nods, considering.

Dean is still studying Cas’ profile when he realizes for the countless time, with as much dizzying clarity as the first, how much he fucking loves him. Of course, that’s not new. Every once in a while though, in quiet moments when Cas is just, _there_ , the feeling will punch the very breath from his lungs. 

So, that’s the second thing he feels in as many hours.

Dean loves him so much it hurts. More than the wounds that mar his skin, more than the bitter notion that Cas had again drained himself without hesitation to bring him back from the brink. He thinks Cas knows, but he hasn’t ever been able to bring himself to words. Dean’s love, after all, is molten stone from deep below the bedrock. It sows heat and destruction to wherever it flows, and unfailingly fells those in its tragic path. He fights hard to keep the ruinous burn of it to himself, but sometimes it seeps through unguarded crevasses. He loves with fierce, scalding abandon. And Cas, well. 

Dean knows he’s a dangerously eroded cliff right now, and he kind of wishes Cas would leave before he inevitably collapses. 

Instead, the angel is grinning at Dean’s geriatric diagnosis, and Dean feels his eyes prickle. 

Cas waits him out; solid, patient and _warm_ Dean confirms, as his hand reaches without permission and clamps down on the angel’s shoulder. He knows he’s caught now, but old habits die hard. 

“But hey man, you might still have a shot,” he blurts through teeth clenched in false cheer, “don’t let me stop you. It’s an hour ‘till close and I saw how that bartender was lookin’ atcha.”

Indeed, the chiseled, caramel-eyed drink-slinger had been angling for far more than tips in Cas’ case, by Dean’s estimation. Not that he’d been looking. In fact, he was averting his eyes so hard that he’d decided to vacate the premises entirely to evade any and all glimpses of the inevitable.

As he tortures himself with how _sensibly_ he’d wingmanned, Cas finally turns. Dean realizes he’s been waiting to be seen all night. 

The lava churns and sputters just behind his throat as Cas rises suddenly. Dean watches him, transfixed and terrified. This is it, he thinks. Dean has finally won his self-loathing little game and finally broken him. At last, Cas sees; is finally fed-up and is leaving Dean to go hook up with a hot bartender after a decade of Dean’s artful skating. He’s sweating again, even though the water’s turned frigid, as he wordlessly witnesses the languid movements of his undoing: his angel uncurling and preparing for flight. He swallows harshly, feeling the sharp stripping of his marrow as his heart shatters.

Instead, strong thighs flex up and over the tub’s edge and echo with an inelegant splutter as they land right before Dean’s eyes. Cas descends over him gracefully, unfaltering force of nature that he is, while the tepid water readily surrenders to his weight. It licks at the wounds under Dean’s ribs while Cas settles in his lap, exceptionally careful not to crush Dean’s bruised flesh. Dean sort of wishes he would; wants to be smothered and buried by this new development before the instinct to extinguish it takes him over.

Cas is staring at him with that same vaguely pinched look he dons when he’s especially irritated with Dean’s antics. All Dean can think of, for one blessed moment, is how much he loves seeing the expression from this close. 

“Dean... ”Cas says, low and electric, before his hands and lips find Dean. "Don’t insult me."

Dean thinks he manages some noise of agreement, but it’s a softly stuttered breath in a gale. He can do little else but concede while his every facade crackles, bright and sudden.

Palms frame his face, fingers sift through his wet hair. Cas kisses him with a reverence he doesn’t deserve and Dean breathes for the first time in hours, maybe years. 

Distantly, he’s aware of a familiar ache between his legs that he’s certain must be obvious, but Cas doesn’t panic. Nobody does in fact, and isn’t that something, he thinks. 

“You’re all I want, Dean,” Cas tells him, anointing his lips, his forehead, his temples with it. The velvet notes weave together all the hollowed caverns of his chest. “All I’ve ever wanted.”

It’s only then that Dean realizes he’s shaking with relief, sudden and irrational as it might be, and that tears have erupted. They scorch his cheeks as they slither towards the water. Cas meets them with his lips and soothes them back into his skin before he trails lower. 

When Dean tries to break away, vexed by this sudden and exquisite gentleness, Cas’ hands compel him to remain steady as they explore him. His tenderness reforges him, but it is nowhere near docile. Dean all too willingly folds.

“Fuck,” Dean croaks into the fog. “That shitty hunt goin’ so sideways, and then him- with his fucking hands all over you, I-”

“You’re all I want,” Cas reiterates softly. There is wonder tainting the gravel tones this time, as though he’s just had a quiet realization of his own. He seems determined to brand this mantra into Dean’s skin, as if his soul hadn’t been enough. 

Dean surges up as best he can against this storm, desperately tangling himself into Cas’ limbs as he holds on for dear life. Somehow along the way, his hands have anchored themselves to sumptuously bared flesh as the water sloshes helplessly in their wakes. It isn’t long before all he sees is blue and all he tastes is petrichor while his senses fall to Cas’ ministrations. 

He finds it easier than he’d imagined to let himself come apart this way, with Cas panting a hungry rhythm against his heat-flecked chest, where Dean can tether his fingers into dark, debauched hair, press his mouth to the throbbing expanses of warm skin and follow the sinuous ebb and flow of naked hips beneath his fingers. 

He marvels at all of it, this creature of light and pure devotion crashing against him like he is the only shore in the world.

He revels in the shelter of his arms, and touches back for all he is worth as the numbness finally recedes.


End file.
